


Initiative

by youcouldmakealife



Series: Follow the North Star [36]
Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-13
Updated: 2017-10-13
Packaged: 2019-01-16 15:58:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12345924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youcouldmakealife/pseuds/youcouldmakealife
Summary: “Shut up about threesomes, you’re going to make Connie spontaneously combust,” Roman says.“I’m fine,” Connie squeaks.





	Initiative

Connie’s just starting to settle into himself a little, looking like he finally gets that Roman and Harry aren’t going to, what, run off together and fuck him over? Harry seemed offended at the suggestion, and maybe Roman should feel that way too, but he can’t dredge up anything but sadness. Maybe some outrage too, but not like Harry’s, more that somehow Connie made it to twenty years old without realizing how fucking _special_ he is. And Roman knows it’s not just him and Harry that feel that way, it’s the vets who took him under their wing instinctively the second he joined the roster in a way they didn’t for the others with the exception of maybe Val. It’s Victor, who keeps everyone at a cool arm’s length except for Connie, who he enveloped just as quickly at the vets did, something in Connie getting past his almost impenetrable guard. 

Roman kind of wants to grab Connie by the cheeks and tell him over and over how special he is until he’s forced to believe him, or at least believe that Roman means it if the first is too much for him. Harry, in his incredible wisdom — as incredible that it was wise as anything else — managed to do him one better without a single word, and Roman’s mouth is still burning a little from where Harry’s teeth caught his lip. He was gentle, Roman noticed, with Connie, and Roman’s glad. It worked better than any promises might have, and Roman’s just exhaled when Harry proves that he has possibly the least tact in the entire world, and Roman’s saying that as someone who probably isn’t so great at it himself. 

“Val was right about threesomes, wasn’t he?” Harry groans with theatrical dismay.

Roman expects Connie to go red at that — hell, Roman can feel himself going red, thinking about it — and he does. Worries that he’ll tuck right back into himself, but he laughs instead, a little unsteady, nervous sounding. On the edge of hysterical, almost. Still, it’s a relief to hear it. 

“Maybe after a little more talking,” Roman says, and he’s trying for something firm, but it comes out as unsteady as Connie’s laugh. Fucking Harry, whose entire life’s endeavor seems to be to destabilize Roman. Or maybe that’s just a side-effect of whatever the hell his endeavor is, but either way, he’s pretty damn good at it.

“And some more vodka,” Harry says.

“No more vodka,” Roman says, and that does come out firmly. He doesn’t know about them, but he’s barely got a buzz left, certainly doesn’t have any less control of his faculties. Still, that’s not something he wants or needs right now, not a good idea for any of them. Victor may have provided all their food and drink, but Roman has a feeling it was Fitzy that thought of the vodka. It seems like his kind of bad idea. It may have forced the issue, did its little bit of good, but it sure as hell isn’t something they need any more of. 

“Buzzkill,” Harry mutters, but without any particular spite to it, like insulting Roman’s automatic. It probably is. Roman has no idea why he likes the dude, but he finds himself grinning kind of stupidly at him, half amusement and half the way grinning comes easy right now when things feel as close to settled as they have for awhile.

They’re not settled though, they’re a long way from settled, and Roman has to remember that or someone’s going to step in it — Roman has a feeling it might be Harry doing the stepping, but he’s not counting himself out either — and that they might end up in the same stalemate of hurt feelings and misunderstandings.

“So that talking,” Roman says.

“Talking makes things worse,” Harry groans, flopping back onto the bed. His head brushes Evan’s knee, his hip settling against Roman’s own knee. Roman reaches out before he can help himself, presses two fingers to the strip of skin where his shirt’s riding up, unsure if Harry shivers or he’s just seeing what he wants to. He pulls his hand into his lap.

“Knowing you, it probably does,” Roman says lamely after a moment, getting another lazy finger in response. “I’m guessing none of us have ever, uh.”

“Been locked in a room?” Harry guesses. “Negotiated a threesome?”

Connie flushes on cue, then flicks Harry’s forehead lightly. Harry squawks in protest, but he’s grinning at Connie too, broad. He really does have a nice smile, as stingy as he can be about showing it. 

“I mean, I’ve never really done this before,” Roman says. He’s had open relationships in the short-term, but distance tends to fuck with them sooner rather than later, the same way it’s always fucked with any relationship he’s tried since college. Still, he’s pretty sure an open relationship and whatever this is? could be? are a whole other species. “This being — well. I mean, whatever this is.”

“Wow,” Harry says. “You must be really inexperienced, all the cool kids are doing it this way.” Then, “Sarcasm, Ev,” presumably because Evan gave him a too credulous look. It’s amazing that Evan takes anything anyone says at face value by now, the fuckers they play with and the fact that Harry seems to be incapable of saying something without a twist to it.

“So basically I have no idea what the fuck I’m doing,” Roman continues, like Harry hasn’t spoken. None of them do, he’s sure, but someone’s got to admit it, and he’s not too proud for it to be him. “Or what we’re doing, and maybe we should figure that out?”

“What _are_ we doing?” Connie asks quietly, which is. That’s the question, isn’t it, and Roman doesn’t think playing it by ear is going to serve any of them well. Hasn’t so far.

“Well,” Roman says, then finds himself at a loss for words.

Harry sits up. “Okay, fine, since Roman’s useless, I’ll talk now.”

“Did you ever stop?” Roman mutters, and gets a flick from Connie in turn, can’t help giving him the same grin Harry did. He’s still a little tense looking, wary, but he’s relaxed enough to be playful, which is a good sign.

“So basically it’s this: Evan and I are together—” he looks over at Connie then, a silent question, and Connie reaches over to squeeze his wrist. “You like Ev, you like me, and it’s basically mutual.”

“Basically?” Roman asks.

“I mean, I’m not actually sure I _like_ you,” Harry says. “You’re kind of a—”

“Harry,” Connie says.

“I wouldn’t kick you out of bed, though,” Harry says.

“Thanks?” Roman says. “You too?”

“Probably couldn’t anyway,” Harry says. “You’re, well.”

Roman raises an eyebrow and is a little surprised when Harry flushes.

“But like,” Harry says, looking away quickly. “I don’t really know — like, I don’t think I’ll stop wanting Ev to myself — sorry, I’m talking about you like you’re not here.”

“It’s okay,” Connie says.

“I don’t mean —” Harry chews his lip a little, looking at a loss for words. “Like, I’m okay with this? I think? More okay with this than I was with the situation before. More threesomes.”

“Shut up about threesomes, you’re going to make Connie spontaneously combust,” Roman says.

“I’m fine,” Connie squeaks.

Harry stops just long enough for the interruption than dives right back in, talking fast, like he’s struggling to keep up with his thoughts. Roman can’t imagine what living inside his head is like if his mouth can’t keep up. “I don’t think I’m going to stop wanting to spend time with Evan though? Like, alone, I mean.”

Roman shrugs. “I wouldn’t expect you to,” he says. That’s not even a romantic impulse, really, something he finds as much with teammates as anything else, that spending time with someone alone is different than in a group, not necessarily a better quality, but a different one. Expecting that of Harry would be as stupid as expecting Connie to never want to hang out with just Val or Victor once he had them. Which Roman guesses he does.

“So I don’t know how we get past that,” Harry says. “Like, wouldn’t it just be the same jealousy all over again, just like, with bonus —”

“Harry,” Roman says.

“Threesomes,” Harry says under his breath with relish.

“I don’t know,” Roman says. “I don’t think we can really predict anything there.”

“So it all goes to shit again, what then?” Harry says. 

Roman shrugs.

“Oh good,” Harry says. “Glad you have a plan.”

“No one starts a relationship planning eventualities for it going to shit,” Roman says. “You do that, you won’t start any at all.”

“So this is a relationship?” Harry asks.

“I mean, isn’t it?” Roman asks. “Maybe more complicated, but it’s the same thing.”

“You’re kind of oversimplifying shit,” Harry says.

“Better than making it unnecessarily complicated,” Roman says.

“Sorry,” Connie says.

“I didn’t mean you, Connie,” Roman says.

“I did, though,” Connie says. “I made it complicated.”

“Pretty sure that was unavoidable, Ev,” Harry says. “You get a whole extra set of moving parts involved, shit gets a little more complicated.”

“Chalmers,” Roman says.

“I wasn’t even talking about threesomes that time!” Harry says.

Roman considers flicking him like Connie did, but he has a feeling that instead of grinning at him like he did at Connie, Harry would bare his teeth. There’s something unsettled between them like there isn’t between Harry and Connie, who are leaning against one another in a way that Roman thinks is entirely unconscious, and that plucks at him a little despite himself. Different than the way it is between Roman and Connie too, though that still feels fragile, like he takes one wrong step and he’ll shatter it. He doesn’t worry about that with Harry, but there’s still tension, less fragile and more muscular, like instead of shattering it’d snap, have them right at one another’s throats. No guessing whether that’d be in the same way as before, snapping at one another, or if it’d be a little more —

Great, now _Roman’s_ thinking about threesomes. 

“But since we’re all thinking about it,” Harry says, like he’s reading Roman’s mind, or maybe just what he hopes is on Roman’s mind. “We’ve talked. Can we have the threesome now?” Roman doesn’t know how someone can sound both pleading and sulky, but Harry manages it.

“Harry,” Connie says, half chiding, half laughing. He’s still laughing when Harry leans half over Roman to kiss him. Roman can see the edges of his smile before Harry raises a hand to cup his cheek. He has surprisingly big hands, but delicate looking, like Connie’s, long fingered. Pianist’s hands, Roman thinks, though one of his fingers is a little crooked, like it got broken and didn’t set perfectly after. 

When Harry pulls back — at some length, and Roman has a feeling he might have felt jealous if he wasn’t caught up in watching them, the way Harry’s fingers buried themselves in Connie’s hair, the loose curl of Connie’s fingers around Harry’s wrist, like maybe he meant to pull away and got distracted — Connie’s no longer smiling, eyes half-lidded, mouth wet. Roman’s seen that look before, seen it closer, a breath away from him, and every time he’s dragged himself away reluctantly, trying to do the right thing.

Roman doesn’t think he’s the best at guessing what that is anymore, but he has a feeling he can pretty accurately guess what’s coming now, and not just because Harry hasn’t shut up about it, or because Harry practically launches himself from Connie to settle half in Roman’s lap, only prevented from overbalancing right onto the floor by Roman’s hand instinctively handing on his hip to steady him. 

“You in?” Harry asks.

Roman tightens his fingers. “We really should talk about this a little—”

“You in?” Harry repeats impatiently.

“I’m in,” Roman says, and kisses Harry first this time. 

He has a feeling that’s going to become a competition too, but if it does, it’s not one he’ll mind losing all that much.


End file.
